Infanticidal behavior has been very common through-out human history. It is suggested that progenicidal behavior, whether consciously or unconsciously practiced, be defined and considered within a cultural, ecological and historical matrix in anthropological studies. Sociobiological and materialist interpretive models are considered too extremist by many anthropologists. Both approaches have an inherent tendency to treat "culture" as a subsidiary variable in infanticide, rather than as encompassing progenicidal phenomena and strategies. A useful conceptual framework with which to approach data collection is one where individuals negotiate progenicidal and child care decision-making within a sociocultural, ecological, technological, demographic and economic framework.

Freely structured interviews conducted to discern the cognitive model of "stress" shared by a group of American graduate students are described. Interview data concern the perceived causes, effects, coping strategies, and inherency of stress. These data are organized according to categories and discrepancies inherent to the sample. Sets of propositional models are developed that illuminate some aspects of the cognitive model. Processes of externalization characterized the subjects' responses at every level and the concept of the individual in opposition to the social environment has figured prominently in this analysis. Although the model is composed of many parts, it may be reduced to a single principle: stress is a response to the perceived threat embodied in the appropriation by others of control over the self-image of the individual.

The sense of smell, though rarely considered important in America, clearly delineates cultural boundaries; this is both demonstrated and promoted through marketing and advertising of consumer products. Historical analyses is invoked to explain why Americans have different tolerances for body odor than their European predecessors. Cultural perceptions of smell are assessed according to Maiy Douglas's models; they are also related to American views of disease and social structure. Odor control manifests as both the American ideal of self-control and as individual expression, or release. The inherent contradictions of these cognitive models are underscored when American culture is examined in terms of its need to control body and environmental odors.

The notion that economic changes embedded in Japan's transition from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy have been associated with corresponding changes in family structure and organization is tested. Changes which did occur were relative and not absolute. Changes in Japanese social organization since 1600 have not been uniform but in fact have been quite varied depending on socio-economic and ecological conditions. Current Japanese trends of decreasing agriculture and increasing industrial urbanization will lead to a continuation in the emergence of the single-person and nuclear family households, equal succession and inheritance, "love" marriages, and neolocal residence as the dominant forms. Nevertheless, the Japanese people are unique in their ongoing attachment to their rich cultural heritage. As long as this loyalty continues, the ie principle will continue to hold an important position in their social lives.

Archaeologists investigating social complexity often focus on traits that differentiate complex societies from the simpler organizational forms preceding them. Few approaches address the role of households or communities in the development and consolidation of complex polities. Those that do, notably hierarchy models, treat such constituent elements as unchanging and irrelevant to the operation of the system as a whole. An examination of the Inka empire indicates that imperial expansion both modified and was predicated upon the organization of conquered groups. This suggests that archaeologists must address both the structure and history of rural hinterlands in models of social complexity.

Ten million Americans are involved in some way with psychic healing practices, yet biomedicine often neglects or ignores these alternative health care systems. This study describes a contemporaly example of psychic healing among middle-class white women as observed in a southwestern Spiritualist-metaphysical chapel. This work is placed in both historical and contemporary contexts. Alternative healing choices, specifically psychic-spiritual healing, may affect the autonomy and self-empowerment of women.

Craft specialization is often used as one indicator of social complexity and even as a prime mover in the development of hierarchical social organization. In these arguments, the important distinction between craft specialization and craft industrialization is generally ignored. Claims for craft specialization are examined in three prehistoric cultures in the American Southwest for which complex social organization has been suggested: Chaco Canyon, the Hohokam, and the Western Anasazi. The material correlates of craft industries in a number of early state-level societies are briefly described and contrasted in both scale and level of organization with the Southwestern pattern. Finally, several models for the development of craft production are used to evaluate the role of craft specialization in the social organization of groups in the puebloan Southwest. The apparent inability of Southwestern groups to produce a surplus of subsistence goods inhibited development of a social hierarchy that could support craft industries. Production and exchange of craft goods at the household level may have been primarily a form of insurance against an uncertain environment.

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